Portage official: Law firm payment needs state review
Chicago Tribune
January 04, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-snyder-stormwater-challenge-st-0104-story.html
Portage City Councilman Collin Czilli has filed a formal complaint with the Indiana State Board of Accounts and asked the agency to review a payment from Portage's Stormwater Management Board to an Indianapolis law firm.
The complaint is the latest entry in a series of events involving the former Utility Services Board.
Czilli, D-5th, said Mayor James Snyder, and not the stormwater board, hired Bingham Greenbaum and Doll to sue the City Council and force the legislative body to break up the former utility board into the sanitary board and the stormwater board.
After months of hammering out details following a court order, Snyder and council members in late 2017 agreed to new board structures and the council abolished the former USB Dec. 31, 2017.
In February 2017, the city council tried firing Snyder as the USB chairman. Snyder hired Indianapolis-based law firm Fagre Baker and Daniels, which wrote a lengthy letter to the city council that stopped them from firing Snyder.
Soon after, the council took over the stormwater board, sparking another row between the council and Snyder, who then hired Bingham.
At its first meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, the stormwater board, made of three Snyder appointees, agreed to pay $231,588 to Bingham for its work last year.
Czilli said the payment was inappropriate, since Snyder hired the firm to represent his office, and the firm began its work even before the stormwater board was formed.
“The Office of the Mayor sued us, the council,” Czilli said. “Of course, it's frustrating. (Snyder) never should've sued the Common Council in the first place. He sued the Common Council because he lost power, and he doesn't like losing power.”
In a written statement, Snyder said the state board of accounts told the city to pay Bingham's legal fees through the stormwater board.
Snyder said the state board told Czilli and another city council member the council's takeover of the board was illegal.
Snyder also said hiring Bingham and passing the legal fees on to the stormwater board was appropriate.
"That's what the State Board of Accounts told us to do," he said.
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